Issa’s Latest Subpoena: ATF

The House Oversight Committee’s latest subpoena goes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for documents on its investigations of gun smuggling.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said Friday that he wants to see documents on the bureau’s Project Gunrunner, which is aimed at tracking weapons bought in the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico.

Law enforcement officers routinely monitor and participate undercover in the transfer of money, drugs or guns to people they suspect of involvement in crime before intercepting the goods and suspects. Congressional Republicans worry that some of the guns may have been allowed to “walk” across the border and used to kill federal law enforcement agents and others.

Mr. Issa wants a wide range of documents by April 13, including information on investigations of the shooting of Brian Terry, a border patrol agent killed in a December gunfight.

The committee had asked ATF, a Justice Department agency, to provide the documents voluntarily, but it didn’t meet the March 30 deadline.

The Department of Justice, in a letter to Mr. Issa Friday, said ATF had been working on the request and would deliver some documents by next week – but not documents concerning Mr. Terry’s death because that would compromise an ongoing criminal investigation.

In the letter, Ronald Weich, an assistant attorney general, called the subpoena an “unnecessary step on your part” and said that the department had reiterated to agents that they could not knowingly let guns be illegally transported into Mexico.

The top Democrat on the oversight committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, has also told Mr. Issa in a letter that he is worried that he is intruding into an ongoing criminal investigation, and complains that other members of the committee weren’t consulted.

This is the third subpoena issued by the committee under Mr. Issa’s chairmanship. The first was to Bank of America, seeking documents about Countrywide’s practice of offering sweetheart loans to favored borrowers. (Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008.) The second was to two employees of the Department of Homeland Security about the department’s handling of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act.

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